THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 55

of that of a night. You will find it conducive to
good.'

'Parson,5 said the farmer aghast, 'I can never sleep
in that bed no more. You may take it, and welcome.'

So Mr. Hawker got the Manning bed, and set it up
in the room that commanded the tomb in the church-
yard; cso that the bed may look at the grave, and
the grave at the bed,5 as he expressed it.

The writer in The Standard, already quoted, thus
describes his first acquaintance with the vicar of
Morwenstow:

It was on a solemn occasion that we first saw Mor-
wenstow. The sea was still surly and troubled, with wild
lights breaking over it, and torn clouds driving through
the sky. Up from the shore, along a narrow path be-
tween jagged rocks and steep banks tufted with thrift,
came the vicar, wearing cassock and surplice, and con-
ducting a sad procession, which bore along with it the
bodies of two seamen flung up the same morning on the
sands. The office used by Mr. Hawker at such times had
been arranged by himself—not without reference to cer-
tain peculiarities, which, as he conceived, were features of
the primitive Cornish Church, the same which had had
its bishops and its traditions long before the conference of
Augustine with its leaders under the great oak by the
Severn. Indeed, at one time he carried his adhesion to
these Cornish traditions to some unusual lengths. There
was, we remember, a peculiar yellow vestment, in which
he appeared much like a Lama of Thibet, which he wore
in his house and about his parish, and which he insisted
was an exact copy of a priestly robe worn by St. Padarn
and St. Teilo. We have seen him in this attire proceeding
through the lanes on the back of a well-groomed mule—
the only fitting beast, as he remarked, for a Churchman.

We have here one instance out of many of the
manner in which the vicar delighted in hoaxing
visitors. The yellow vestment in question was a
poncho. It came into use in the following manner:

Mr. Martyn, a neighbour, was in conversation one
day with Mr. Hawker, when the latter complained
that he could not get a greatcoat to his fancy. and exemplary in